RECIPE - Chayote Gratin (Tigelada de Chuchu)

The recipe, the second that we have published from the historical recipe collection of the Fazenda Capoava Ranch and Hotel in São Paulo state (as reimagined by chef Heloísa Bacellar) is an interesting combination between a traditional French vegetable gratin and a souffle. And the choice of chayote (chuchu in Portuguese) as the principal ingredient makes it thoroughly Brazilian as well.

The dish combines the bechamel sauce, grated cheese and bread crumbs that are integral parts of a gratin with beaten egg yolks and white that lighten it in the style of a souffle. The result is a substantial and rich side dish, one that adds some punch to the subtle delicate flavor of chayote. The dish could probably be made successfully with other vegetables if you can't find chayotes in your local market; however, this native American vegetable can increasingly be found in supermarkets everywhere, and can easily be sourced in Latin American markets.
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RECIPE - Chayote Gratin (Tigelada de Chuchu)
Serves 4

2 medium to large chayotes, peeled, seeded and cut into small cubes
1/4 cup butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk, wamr
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 whole eggs, separated
softened butter and dried breadcrumbs to grease and prepare the bowl
salt to taste
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Prepare a deep ovenproof bowl or dutch oven by greasing it thoroughly with softened butter, then dusting with dried bread crumbs. Reserve.

In a medium saucepan with a lid, melt half of the butter, then add the onions and garlic and cook over low heat until they soften and just begin to brown . Stir in the cubes of chayote, cover the pan and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring from time to time, or until the chayote is softened. Remove from the heat, stir in the parsley and reserve.

In a small saucepan, prepare the bechamel. Melt the butter, then slowly add the flour, blending completely to avoid lumps. When you have a thick paste, begin to add the milk, stirring constantly. When all the milk has been added continue to cook until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and combine with the reserved chayote. Stir in the cheese and season to taste with salt. Reserve, letting cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). In a large bowl beat the egg whites to the firm peak stage. Stir the lightly beaten egg yolks into the chayote mixture, then carefully fold in the egg whites, taking care not to deflate the beaten eggs. Spoon or pour the mixture into the prepared ovenproof bowl. Smooth the surface gently, then sprinkle bread crumbs over. Put in the preheated oven and cook for 40 minutes, or until it has risen, and turned golden.

Remove from the oven and serve immediately in the bowl it was cooked in.

RECIPE - São Paulo-style Moqueca (Moqueca Paulista)

Although moquecas are associated with the Afro-Brazilian cuisine of Bahia in the minds of most people, there are numerous regional variations on the moqueca theme in traditional Brazilian cuisine. For example,  the state that is immediately south of Bahia, Espírito Santo, has its own way to make a moqueca - the liquid for the stew is made from tomatoes rather than from coconut milk and dendê oil as is done in Bahia.

The one thing that most moquecas do have in common is that they are cooked and served in a deep bowl of some sort, often clay, as they are normally rather liquid, soupy stews. However, there is one regional style of moqueca that dispenses with the deep bowl. In fact it dispenses with a serving dish of any type. Traditional paulista (from São Paulo) moquecas are served wrapped up in banana leaves, creating individual packages to be opened by diners at the table.

In the recipe archives of Fazenda Capoava, 100 km. from the city of São Paulo, there is a hand-written 19th century recipe for just such a moqueca. As part of her project of recreating recipes from the ranch's archives for use in the current-day restaurant at Fazenda Capoava, chef Heloísa Bacellar updated the old recipe for modern kitchens and modern cooks. The result - the recipe below - now has a place on the Fazenda Capoava menu.

Note: The recipe calls for the moqueca to be wrapped in banana-leaf parcels for cooking and serving. French or frozen banana leaves can often be found in Latin American and Asian food markets in metropolitan areas in North America or Europe. If you can't source banana leaves, the packages can be formed from aluminum foil, though some of their tropical charm will necessarily be lost. The same stores are good sources for farinha, also known as manioc flour, or cassava flour. This is essential to the dish and shouldn't be substituted with other types of flour.
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RECIPE - São Paulo-style Moqueca (Moqueca Paulista)
Serves 6

1 free-range chicken (about 2-3 lbs), in serving pieces, with giblets, or the same quantity of chicken pieces
2 large onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
4 cups water
2 Tbsp butter
4 very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
1/3 cup chopped Italian parsley
12 sprigs Italian parsley
2 cups manioc flour (farinha)
4 hard-cooked eggs, peeled
salt and pepper to taste
2 full-sized banana leaves, thawed if purchased frozen (can substitute aluminum foil)
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In  a large sauce pan, combine the chicken pieces, half of the onion and garlic, the bay leaf, salt to taste and the water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until the chicken meat is falling off the bone. Remove the chicken from the pan and reserve. Bring the cooking liquid back to the boil and cook at high heat until the liquid is reduced to about 1 cup. Reserve.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred it by hand. Reserve.

In a large saucepan melt the butter and when it's hot but not smoking, add the remaining onion and garlic and saute them until they are lightly golden. Then add the tomato, the olives and parsley and the reserved chicken and cooking liquid. Correct for salt and add black pepper to taste. Slowly add the manioc flour, stirring constantly, and cooking over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens into a thick paste that begins to pull away from the sides of the pan when you stir. Remove from the heat and let cool until no more than warm.

Preheat the oven to 375F (200C). Cut the eggs into three thick slices each. Have a large baking dish ready.

Cut the banana leaves into 12 portions, each one about 8 by 8 inches (20 x 20 cm). If using aluminum foil, cut squares of the same size. On each square, put about one 12th of the moqueca mixture in the middle, place one round of egg and a sprig of parsley on top, then close and seal the package (if using banana leave, cut ties from the banana leaves and use them like gift-wrapping ribbons to seal the packages.

Put the packages in the baking dish and cook in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the banana leaves are nicely browned. Place two packages on each plate, serve, and let the diners open their own packages at the table.

Based on material written by Camila Bianchi for Prazeres da Mesa magazine.

Mining Gastronomic Treasures - Brazil's Fazenda Capoava Hotel

Casa Grande - Fazenda Capoava

Located in the hills of São Paulo state, only 100 km (60 miles) from the megalopolitan state capital, the city of São Paulo, the Fazenda Capoava hotel and restaurant offers guests a relaxing stay on a ranch that has been functioning since the 17th century, being at successive times a sugar plantation, a coffee plantation and a cattle ranch. Today, visitors come for the comfortable accommodation in chalets that surround the original casa grande (big house) built in 1750, as well as numerous leisure activities such as horseback riding, hiking, kayaking, bicycle touring, plus a spa and massage facility.

An integral part of the hotel/ranch complex is a building called the Espaço Memória Fazenda Capoava, meaning the Capoava Ranch Memory Space. This museum of the ranch's history is open to the public as well as to hotel guests, and is a repository for artifacts and documents from the ranch's past. The museums collection includes antique industrial-sized coffe grinders, farm implements, and valuable antique furniture from the casa grande. Alongside the artifacts, the museum has an impressive display of documents from the archives of the ranch. There are also many documents for which there is insufficient space to display. These, however, are available to historians and researchers.

Among the most interesting documents, according to Danilo Costa, the food and beverage manager of the ranch, is an extensive collection of 19th century recipes from the ranch's kitchen - four generations-worth of hand-written recipes. Sr. Costa has taken the initiative of inviting one of São Paulo's best-known chefs, Heloísa Bacellar, to study the recipe archive and to recreate several of the best recipes for 21st century cooks. These recipes are now being served in the hotel's restaurant.

Sra. Bacellar chose to begin her task by reinterpreting three 19th century dishes from the ranch - a Paulista-style moqueca, a chayote gratin and a sweet coffee-flavored pudding. The dishes are now available to diners at Fazenda Capoava and in the next few days Flavors of Brazil will publish these historial recreations for our readers.

Based on material written by Camila Bianchi for Prazeres da Mesa magazine.

Mara Rosa - Where Brazil Grows its Turmeric

In the sparcely populated northern stretches of the central Brazilian state of Goiás, where the cerrado that covers much of central Brazil begins to give way to the rain forests of the Amazonian basin, lies the hamlet of Mara Rosa. Although Mara Rosa counts only about 300 families, almost all of them share an  occupation - they are all turmeric farmers.

Turmeric (called curcuma in Portuguese) is an essential spice in the Brazilian pantry, even though it originated in Asia, like its botanical cousin ginger. Brazilians use the spice not only for its earthy, almost musty, flavor but also for the way it imparts a brilliant yellow color to dishes in which it is employed. As a food colorant, turmeric often serves as a substitute for saffron, which also give dishes a golden hue, but which is infinitely more expensive than turmeric. Alternative Brazilian names for the spice, such as açafrão-da-terra  meaning saffron-of-the-earth, demonstrate the link between turmeric and saffron in Brazilian gastronomy. In fact, many Brazilians simply call turmeric açafrão, and are perhaps unaware of the existance of true saffron, which can only be found in the best, most expensive gourmet shops in Brazil's bigger cities.

Turmeric has been grown in Mara Rosa since the 17th century, but it's only recently that local growers have banded together as a turmeric-growing cooperative, Cooperaçafrão. The aims of the cooperative are to stabilize and increase the price they are paid for their harvest, to improve cultivation yields through techniques such as crop rotation, and to restrict sales from the co-op to pure, dehydrated rhizomes of turmeric. Very little whole turmeric is sold directly to consumers, and the bulk of the co-op's sales are to spice companies, who grind the rhizomes and package the spice for consumers.

For most North Americans and Europeans, the color and taste of turmeric is primarily associated with Asian food, especially Indian food in which turmeric is an essential ingredient of most curry powders. In Indian cuisine, however, turmeric is normally mixed with other spices in the creation of spice powders and pastes, so the flavor of turmeric doesn't shine through. In Brazilian cuisine, where it's used alone, the intense and distinctive flavor of turmeric is allowed to be the dominant spice note in many dishes. Tomorrow, Flavors of Brazil will publish a typical Brazilian recipe which gives turmeric a starring role.

Developing the Cupuaçu's Full Potential

cupuaçu fruit

Although it's as yet virtually unknown outside Brazil, chocolate's close relative, the cupuaçu, has always been loved in Brazil. People there line up in ice cream parlors to get a double scoop of cupuaçu ice cream. And when Brazilians want a rich, creamy drink they often go for a glass of freshly-prepared cupuaçu juice. Mousses, puddings and cream fillings of all sorts are often flavored with the richly aromatic fruit.

What is interesting about the two closely related foods, chocolate and cupuaçu, is that up til now, each of the two fruits has been exploited entirely differently, their biological relationship notwithstanding. Chocolate is derived from the fermented and dried seeds of the cacau fruit, but when it comes to cupuaçu it's the succulent pulp which is eaten. A look inside these two botanical cousins gives an indication why this might be so - there is little pulp and a large number of seeds inside the cacau fruit but inside the cupuaçu the portions are reversed, with plenty of creamy pulp and a smaller number of seeds.

Recently, however, there have been some very interesting developments in the exploitation of cupuaçu. Food scientists, creative chefs and food-security activists in Brazil are taking a second look at the cupuaçu. They're moving beyond the pulp and concentrating on the seeds. The thought is that since the world has long been addicted to chocolate in all its variety, it might be worthwhile seeing what the gastronomic potential is of the seeds of the cupuaçu. Perhaps it could come to stand alongside chocolate as one of the most commercially valuable members of the Theobroma genus. Theobroma does mean "food of the gods" in Greek, and maybe it's time to add cupuaçu to the pantheon as well.

fermented cupuaçu seeds

Fresh from the pod, neither the seeds of cupuaçu nor cacau are edible - it's only after fermentation and drying that the seeds can be used in the kitchen. The chemical changes involved in this process are a gastronomic transformation that is the culinary equivalent of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Horticulturists and nutritionists are now looking at cupuaçu with a new eye. The potential for gastronomic use of the seed far exceeds the market for pulp. Chefs in Brazil are already creating recipes that exploit the best characteristics of the seeds, NGOs are helping farmers in the rain forest develop sustainable cupuaçu agriculture, and media campaigns are already underway to educate the public about cupuaçu seeds.

On Wednesday, we'll feature recipes from the Brazilian press which focus on this unique fruit and it's entirely new use.

RECIPE - Bahian Farofa with Dendê (Farofa de Dendê)

All Brazilian farofas combine manioc flour (farinha) with some sort of fat or oil to moisten and flavor the dry, lightly-flavored flour. The fat can be melted butter or lard, it can be rendered bacon fat, or it can be a liquid oil like olive oil or neutral vegetable oil.

In the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, where the local style of cooking evidences a strong African influence - a heritage of the history of slavery in Brazil - the oil typically used in making farofa is the shockingly-orange, highly-flavored palm oil called dendê, which came from West Africa with the very first slaves bound for Brazil's gold mines and sugar plantations.

This recipe from Bahia also adds another typically West African flavor to the manioc and dendê mixture - dried shrimps. With a strong flavor of the sea, the small, dried crustaceans are finely chopped or ground into a flour to add one more of Bahia's essential flavors to this dish.

Bahian dendê farofa, along with white rice, is the perfect accompaniment for any of Bahia's marvelous moquecas - fish or seafood stews, redolent of coconut milk, cilantro and dendê.

There is no adequate substitute for any of the main ingredients in this dish, though manioc flour (farinha), dendê and dried shrimps can often be found in Latin American and African markets in cities which have immigrant communities, and dried shrimps can also be found in most Asian markets.
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RECIPE - Bahian Farofa with Dendê (Farofa de Dendê)
Serves 6

1/2 cup (125 ml) dendê oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 oz. (100 gr) dried shrimp
2 1/2 cups dried manioc flour (farinha)
salt to taste
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Finely mince the dried shrimp with a large knife or cleaver, or, alternatively, grind them in a spice grinder.

Heat the dendê in a large frying pan, the add the chopped onion and cook until the onions are soft and golden. Add the minced or ground shrimp and stir well to combine. Add the manioc flour in a steady stream, stirring all the while to moisten all the flour. When the farofa is dry and the grains are separated, season with salt, then continue to toast the farofa for a minute or two, stirring constantly.

Serve immediately as part of a Bahian-style meal.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

Farofa - The Universal Accompaniment

Photo courtesy Come-Se

When Brazilians eat grilled or roasted meat or fish, the side dishes are plain white rice, beans and a golden-colored mixture with a sandy texture called farofa. Eating churrasco, the Brazilian-style mixed grill cooked over charcoal without a dish of farofa to accompany it is considered culinary heresy.

There are infinite variations and thousands of recipes for farofa, but at its most basic farofa is a mixture of dry manioc flour toasted in some sort of fat to flavor and moisten it. The fat can be butter, it can be bacon fat and in Bahia, where African culinary traditions rule, it's like to be be dendê, the brilliant orange palm oil that is the herald of Bahian cooking.

Farinha - dry manioc flour

Manioc itself, of course, is a heritage of Amerindian cooking traditions in Brazil and the only truly native staple food in this country. This protean tuber appears at the Brazilian table in a startlingly large number of forms - so many and so different that it's hard to imagine they all come from the same plant. Manioc can be mashed or french-fried like potatoes, it can be made into breads and pastries, or it can show up as tapioca, which in Brazil means a crepe, not a dessert pudding. But it is as farofa that it's most commonly found on the dinner table.

Besides the use of different forms of fat to vary the basic recipe, Brazilian chefs also occasionally add other flavoring ingredients such as onion, crispy bacon bits or shredded carne de sol (dried jerky). Sometimes fresh herbs, particularly cilantro and chopped green onion, are added to give the farofa a fresh touch. Day-to-day farofa is likely to be more basic, however.

In Brazilian supermarkets it's possible to buy packages of farofa, pre-made. Most Brazilian cooks, though, still make it at home, preferring freshly cooked farofa to the industrially prepared variety.

Just as there are many different ways to cook farofa, there are many different ways to eat it. Some people like to sprinkle farofa directly on the grilled meat or fish. This is particularly popular when eating churrasquinho, Brazil's meat-on-a-stick take on kebabs. Some prefer to mix all the side dishes on their plate, the rice, the beans and the farofa, to make one all-purpose accompaniment to the meal's centerpiece. Others like to dip each forkful of meat into a pile of farofa before popping it into their mouth. And some, farofa's most ardent fans, will eat theirs straight up, not mixing it with anything else.

Because of the characteristically sandy, gritty texture of manioc flour and it's relative lack of flavor, visitors to Brazil are often puzzled by farofa. They don't appreciate the texture, likening it to beach sand, and they don't see what it adds to the dining experience. But non-Brazilians who spend some time in this country often find that the habit of eating farofa eventually sneaks up on them. At at some point in the Brazilianization process, they are likely to discover that a plate of grilled meats without farofa looks bare and incomplete. They've become farofasized.

The manioc flour used to make farofa, called farinha in Portuguese, can be difficult to source outside Brazil, unless you live in an area with a Brazilian immigrant community. In those areas, farinha can be bought in Latin American ethnic markets. Manioc flour is also a common ingredient in many African culinary cultures and African markets are likely to stock it as well.

Porco Caipira - Brazil's Redneck Pig

Porco caipira

The Brazilian Portuguese word caipira is one of those emotionally-charged words which carry a lot of connotations, both positive and negative. Just like it's nearest equivalents in American English, hillbilly or redneck, it can be extremely perjorative, affectionate, or a banner of pride depending on the context and who is speaking. No one knows what the origin of the word is, though the most authoritative Portuguese dictionaries indicate that it derives from Tupi, one of the languages of Brazil's original Amerindian inhabitants.

In the world of politics or community relations, caipira is generally carry negative connotations, but in the culinary world it is overwhelmingly positive. Think of it as meaning homestyle or country-style. A rustic chicken stew called galinha caipira is one of Brazil's most celebrated comfort foods. But not only the stew is named galinha caipira - the same moniker is given to what we'd call a free-range chicken. A redneck hen, in other words.

Not only hens are redneck or hillbilly in Brazil, though. They have a barnyard cousin known as the redneck pig (porco caipira). And this rural porker has become the flavor of the month - showing up in food magazines and Brazilian food blogs, being featured in food festivals and on chefs' menus. And just in time it appears, for the porco caipira was in serious danger of extinction until its culinary value was recognized by the food community and its genetic importance was recognized by Embrapa, The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.

Pigs are not native to the new world. Ancestral pigs lived in almost all regions of Europe, Asia and Africa prior to the European colonization of the Americas, and were brought to the new world by European explorers and colonizers. Over time, many pigs escaped and became feral, often interbreeding with their American cousins, the peccary. Even those which remained domesticated interbred without thought of genetic purity, becoming completely naturalized to Brazilian conditions as a result. This is the porco caipira - a true mongrel, perfectly suited to Brazilian climatic conditions and topography.

In the past 50 years or so, the porco caipira had been losing ground to created-in-the-laboratory breeds of pork that grew faster, were leaner and overall more efficient as sources of meat. Brazil's large meat packers required farmers to provide them with the breeds that gave them the most lucrative product possible, and as a result, the pig that had always been Brazil's pig was in danger of extinction.

Coming to the rescue though, combining their efforts for different reasons, Embrapa and the culinary community seem to have snatched the porco caipira from the jaws of extinction. The agriculture department has recognized that the miscegenated porker is a valuable contribuent to the porcine gene pool, and cooks and diners alike have discovered that porco caipira just plain tastes better than factory pork. For the first time in a long time, the future of the redneck pig is looking quite rosy.

RECIPE - Skate Moqueca (Moqueca de Arraia)

One of the most popular ways to serve arraia (ray or skate in English) in Brazil comes from the northeastern state of Bahia, specifically from the Afro-Brazilian culinary traditions of Salvador, the state's capital city and Brazil's original capital.

In traditional Bahian cuisine, a thick stew made from fish or seafood in a broth of tomatoes, onions, coconut milk and the brilliant-orange palm oil known as dendê is called a moqueca. The word moqueca and the recipe both come from Africa and the tradition of cooking fish in moquecas crossed the Atlantic to Brazil in the hold of slave ships which carried Africans to slavery in the mines and sugar cane plantations of Brazil.

This recipe for moqueca de arraia (moqueca of skate or ray) comes from the SENAC cooking school in Salvador, and is a typical moqueca. There are as many recipes for moqueca as there are cooks, but the ingredients used in this recipe are found in some combination in almost every recipe.

Dendê palm oil has a distinctive color and flavor and there really is no substitute for it, although substituting 2 or 3 tablespoons of sweet paprika will give the final dish almost the same color. However one of the most important flavor components will be missing when dendê is absent. In cities that have a Brazilian immigrant community, markets that cater to Brazilians will likely have dendê in stock, and in cities with an African immigrant population you can often find dendê in African markets, labeled simply palm oil.
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RECIPE - Skate Moqueca (Moqueca de Arraia)
Serves 4

2 lbs (1 kg) skate wings
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
juice of one lime
1 medium onion, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and sliced
2/3 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup dendê oil
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
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Cut the skate wings into large pieces. Bring lots of water to a boil in a large saucepan, then add the skate. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook the fish for about 15 minutes. Drain the fish, and let cool completely. When the fish is cool, using your fingers or a fork, pull the meat away from the cartilaginous bony structure and flake it. Discard the cartilage. Season the meat with the lime juice, chopped garlic and cilantro and season with salt. Let marinade no more than 1/2 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C)

In a ceramic or glass casserole, preferably round, layer the slices of tomato and onion, alternating with layers of the reserved fish. Pour the coconut milk and dendê oil over all. Place in the preheated oven, and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the tomato and onion are soft and the broth is bubbling hot.

Serve immediately accompanied by plain white rice and some sort of hot chili-pepper sauce.

RECIPE - Brazilian Eggnog (Licor de Ovos)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere we've just passed the equinox and autumn is upon us. In certain parts of Brazil that doesn't really mean much as the weather is tropical all year round. However, in the more southerly part of the country, especially in high-altitude regions of the interior, during fall and winter temperatures can drop precipitously, and it can be bitterly cold, especially at night.

The interior state of Minas Gerais is one place that has learned well over the years how to lessen the impact of cold weather. In the historic cities of Minas during the cold season people light fires in fireplaces, eat hearty and rich stews and soups and drink hot drinks, all in aid of keeping warm. During the same season, they also drink a home-made spirit called licor de ovos (egg liqueur), the Brazilian version of eggnog.

Eggnog is a cold-weather drink almost everywhere it is known - the combination of milk, eggs, sugar and possibly liquor is just too rich to be enjoyed in hot climes. It becomes cloying and overly-rich when the temperature soars. So this recipe, which comes from the small town of Joaquim Felício, MG, is just starting to be made in these early days of autumn. That will ensure that in a month or two from now, on those chilly mountain evenings, there will be plenty of licor de ovo to warm the cockles of everyone's heart.

The liquor used in Minas Gerais to make licor de ovos is, naturally, Brazil's own cachaça. However, if you can't source cachaça you can substitute rum, although the result will be substantially less Brazilian (and it will also be sweeter).
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RECIPE - Brazilian Eggnog (Licor de Ovos)
Makes about one quart (one liter)

6 fresh egg yolks, preferably free-range
1 lb. (500 gr) granulated white sugar
2 cups (500 ml) whole milk
2 cups (500 ml) cachaça (rum may be substituted)
10 drops pure vanilla essence

In a medium saucepan, bring the milk just to the boil, then remove from heat and cool completely. Reserve.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the egg yolks and the sugar. Beat with a fork or a whisk-type beater until the mixture is consistent and frothy. Pour in the reserved milk, and stir to mix it in completely. Then do the same with the  cachaça. Finally add the vanilla essence and mix once again.

Pour into a sterile bottle or jug. Refrigerate for at least one month prior to serving to let the flavors develop.

Brazil Gets Its Own Food Network

It was probably inevitable. With cable TV reaching into more and more Brazilian homes, and with the possibility of accessing hundreds of channels becoming a reality for most of Brazil's burgeoning middle class, it was only a matter of time before one of those available channels was filled by a channel devoted to food and cooking. After all, the USA has its Food Network, Canada has Food Network Canada, Australia's got Lifestyle Food, and France has got Le Canal Gourmandises, so why shouldn't Brazil have a food channel too?

It's not to say that Brazil didn't already have lots of TV programs devoted to food, cooking and food culture. Popular cooking-themed shows (particularly reality-TV style programs like Top Chef and all of Gordon Ramsay's *!$#% shows) from other countries are imported and subtitled and shown on cable lifestyle channels. GNT, a cable network aimed at women and owned by Brazilian media giant Globo, offers a diet of cooking shows along with talk, beauty and fashion shows. Major broadcast networks, like Globo itself, offer a few cooking shows weekdays during the morning. But up until 2011, Brazil didn't have a 24-hour, domestic, Portuguese-language food network.

That all changed, though, on January 17, 2011 when Chef TV went on the air for the first time on the TVA and TV Alphaville cable systems. Owned by Grupo Mídia do Brasil and based in São Paulo, Chef TV transmits food-related programming 24/7 to its subscribers. Its programming content also be streamed anywhere in Brazil direct from the channel's website Chef TV.

More than 80% of the channel's programming is produced domestically in Brazil, with the remaining 20% being rebroadcasts of international content. A glance at the channel's program grid reveals a total lack of reality-TV style elimination shows and a very small number of personality-chef based programs (so far). Most of the programs are thematic in nature, covering one aspect or another of gastronomy. For example, tonight's prime-time programs include a wine show starring a well-known sommelier, a cocktail show hosted by a bartender, a chef's TV diary and recipe collection, a program about the history of gastronomy, a program in which viewers can have their culinary questions answered, and a show devoted to the pizza. Other programs on the channel's schedules include a program about Brazil's Bahian regional cuisine, a seafood show, and of course, a dessert and pastry show. Many of the shows are cooking demonstrations, and all recipes from all shows can be found on the Chef TV website.

As devoted viewers of The Food Network in its early days, and as heart-broken spectators watching the network's degeneration into food-star silliness over time, Flavors of Brazil has its fingers crossed for  Chef TV. So far, it's a gastronomy channel and not merely foodetainment. We fervently hope it'll stay that way.

Moqueca in Addis Ababa? - Brazilian Cuisine in Africa

Addis Ababa

Until fairly recently, Brazilian cooks and chefs often exhibited a tendency to devalue local Brazilian cuisine and to rely on Italian or French recipes, menus and techniques when they wanted to appeal to a sophisticated clientele. Sure, local holes-in-the-wall served true Brazilian food - always had done and always will do was their motto - but big-city restaurants that wanted to indulge and impress their clients gilded their menus with such dishes as vichyssoise, risotti, crêpes Suzette and tiramisù.

Not today. The best and most creative chefs strive to outdo each other in offering authentic Brazilian cuisine - local recipes, local techniques and local ingredients. As in many other fields 21st century Brazilians have developed a new pride in Brazilian cooking and gastronomy.  One restaurant might source an artisanal cheese that's been made the same way for three or four centuries in one remote location, while another restaurant might find in another location a fruit that's been eaten in a small territory for three or four millennia.

The Brazilian government now recognizes the importance, both domestically and internationally, of supporting Brazilian food culture. It sponsors local food festivals and gastronomic events, its tourism department has a sophisticated approach to culinary tourism, and its economic development branch supports Brazilian food exports.

Currently, thanks to the Brazilian embassy in Addis Ababa, three prominent Brazilian chefs are in Ethiopia to showcase Brazilian gastronomy in the high-altitude African capital. During the Brazilian food festival in Addis Ababa from February 03 to 27, the three chefs - Mara Salles, Paulo Machado e Eduardo Duó - will offer a Brazilian menu at one of the Addis Ababa's best restaurants, the Kuriftu Diplomat, at lunch and dinner. In addition to the festival at the restaurant, the chefs will also work with cooks from hospitals from the interior of Ethiopia to develop a healthy and sustainable food programs for those institutions.

The Brazilian culinary team

The chefs have taken it upon themselves to try to showcase Brazilian food using Ethiopean ingredients where possible, although they carried with them certain essential ingredients that cannot be found in Ethiopia, such as manioc flour, dendê oil and cachaça. For example, they will be offering a very traditional Brazilian moqueca (a spicy fish stew) but will use fresh-water fish from the River Nile rather than a frozen imported product. Even though Brazil is one of the world's largest coffee producers, they will serve Ethiopian coffee to honor the country where coffee was first drunk.

In addition to presenting Brazilian food at its best, the chefs say that they will also take advantage of the opportunity to learn about Ethiopian cuisine, which is almost completely unknown in Brazil. Maybe on their return journey they will be bringing back new and exciting Ethiopian ingredients to offer in their own restaurants back in Brazil - just one more fruit of this interesting and forward-looking program of showcasing Brazilian cuisine to the world, and one more link in the increasingly connected global world of gastronomy.

Based on material from Brazilian website Gastronomia & Negócios

São Paulo - 458 Years Young

Today, January 25, is a day of celebration in Brazil's largest city (and one of the largest cities in the world) São Paulo. It was 458 years ago today, in 1554, that Jesuit fathers Manuel de Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded a village on a plateau 42 miles inland from the port city of São Vicente and baptized it São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga. Fortunately, that cumbersome name has since been shortened to São Paulo, just as another mission farther north in the Americas, Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, has had its name shortened to Los Angeles, or even to just plain LA.

São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga

Affectionately nicknamed A Cidade de Garoa by Brazilians, a nickname which means "The City of Drizzle" and which refers to a frequent climate condition on São Paulo's plateau, the city has grown to be one of the ten-largest metropolitan agglomerations in the world (some sources place it as high as third  place, others in fifth, sixth or seventh).

São Paulo isn't an easy city to love, and it doesn't have the picture-postcard appeal that Rio de Janeiro luxuriates in. It's noisy, hectic and overcrowded. Traffic is terrible, and the subway system would better suit a city one quarter of the size. (Nonetheless,  São Paulo's subway has more that 750 million riders annually). It's the economic and political powerhouse of Brazil, and the capital of Brazil's most populous state, also called São Paulo. As far as we know though, no one has written a hymn to São Paulo entitled "São Paulo, São Paulo" along the lines of "New York, New York." But São Paulo does have its own peculiar charm, and many Paulistanos swear they wouldn't live anywhere else on Earth.

São Paulo today

São Paulo is without contest the gastronomic center of Brazil. Clearly it leads the country in the sheer number of restaurants, food suppliers, meat and produce wholesale markets. But it also at the forefront of Brazil's new gastronomy - one São Paulo restaurant was recently voted the seventh best restaurant in the world, and every week a new and avant-garde restaurant is lauded in the food sections of local papers and in food and wine magazines. Because São Paulo is home to a number of large immigrant communities, the largest being Italian, Portuguese and Japanese, and also home to communities of internal migrants from other regions of Brazil, you can find almost any type of cuisine in São Paulo - whether international cuisines or regional Brazilian cuisines.

In the next few days, Flavors of Brazil will feature some typical Paulistano recipes and link back to some we've published earlier. Today, we'll just join the chorus of those wishing all 20 million or so residents of São Paulo a very happy municipal birthday.

A Cheese Map of Minas Gerais

Charles de Gaulle once quipped when asked how he enjoyed governing France, "Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays où il existe 246 variétés de fromage?" ("How would you like to govern a country which has 246 types of cheese?") Well, if there are 246 types of French cheese, there are probably an equal number of different types of cheese come from the interior Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Which stands to good reason because that state is just about the same size, only slightly larger, than France.

Just as the sheer number of French cheeses can overwhelm all but the professional turophile (look it up here), the nomenclature of cheeses from Minas Gerais is equally confusing. Some of the best artisanal cheeses are produced only in small quantities and remain virtually unknown outside their area of production. And to complicate matters, many of the cheeses have similar sounding names, or identical names.

In an effort to relieve some of this confusion and to create a systematic naming and cataloguing of the many mineiro (from Minas Gerais) cheeses, the central market of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, has produced a cheese map of the state, indicating the four principal areas of cheese production in Minas Gerais and detailing within those four areas the names of the municipalities that make cheese. The four main areas of production are called Cerrado, Araxá, Canastra and Serro. Each of these areas gives its name to cheeses produced locally, but each is also split into small units which can further define a cheese's origins. The map is below. (Note that the map is high resolution - if you wish to read the detail, simply click on the map).

In order to systematize the geographical names for these cheeses, the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial of Brazil has begun to grant indicação geográfica status (geographical indication) to mineiro cheeses, starting with artisanal cheese from the Serro region. This IG status, as its known, is similar to European schemes to preserve and protect the geographical integrity of a number of food products, such as cheese, processed meats and wines. France has had a system called AOC in place to safeguard wines for many years, and Italy grants DOC status to many food products. Brazil's IG status is intended to serve the same purpose. Combining protected name status with promotional activities and products like the cheese map will, it is hoped, preserve and protect those artisanal cheeses which are an important part of the gastronomic heritage of Minas Gerais.

RECIPE - Pastel de Belém

This recipe makes no claims to authenticity. It's not the recipe used at Lisbon's famed Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, where these sweet-egg custard tarts became famous. It couldn't be, since the recipe used there is a closely guarded secret, supposedly only known to three people in the world. (To read more about the history of this pastry, click here.) In fact, since it's not the authentic recipe, this one shouldn't even be called Pastel de Belém since that name is registered to the Confeitaria alone. The proper name should be the more generic Pastel de Nata (Cream tart). However, this recipe's source, a Brazilian cookbook called Cozinha Regional Brasileira - Rio de Janeiro names it Pastel de Belém, and most Brazilians would call it the same thing. So shall we.

Since this recipe is intended for amateur cooks and homemakers, it uses commercial ingredients, like frozen puff pastry and sweetened condensed milk, neither of which are in the original recipe whatever it is. However, these labor-saving ingredients increase greatly the chances that our readers might tackle these tarts at home. It's worth it, as they are delicious. And maybe, after making them at home, our readers who find themselves in Lisbon will make their way down to the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém to sample the real McCoy.
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RECIPE - Pastel de Belém 
Makes 10 tarts

1 package frozen puff pastry
3 cups whole milk
2 cups sweetened condensed milk
6 egg yolks
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
granulated white sugar for sprinkling
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Let the puff pastry thaw according to package directions. Preheat the oven to 400F (300C).

In a large pan, combine the milk, condensed milk, egg yolks, the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Put the corn starch in a small tea cup, then slowly add about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, stirring constantly to avoid lumps, until the corn starch dissolves. Pour the corn starch mixture into the pan and stir again.

Put the pan on the stove, turn on the heat to medium and heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat and reserve.

Roll out the puff pastry and cut out 10 circles, just the size that can fit into the holes of a non-stick muffin tin. Drape each circle over a hole in the tin, and gently press it into place at the bottom of the hole. Spoon in enough cream just to fill the cups of puff pastry. Sprinkle each with a small amount of sugar and put the muffin tin in the oven.

Cook for approximately 15 minutes, or until the pastry is browned and fluffy and the custard is semi-solid. Use a toothpick to check for doneness - if a toothpic inserted into the custard comes out clean the custard is set.

Cool in the muffin tin on a wire rack, then remove the tarts.

Serve, sprinkled with powdered cinnamon if desired.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

Carne de Lata - Brazil's Own Confit

Back in the days before a large majority of Brazilians had refrigerators in their home, people used other techniques for preserving foods. There are lots of ways to preserve food that don't involve cold temperatures - a good thing in a mostly-tropical country like Brazil. Smoking, pickling in vinegar or wine, preserving in sugar syrups, salting - all these techniques are important parts of traditional Brazilian cooking.

One additional way to preserve food, usually meats, that was popular in Brazil up to the middle of the 20th Century, has begun to make a comeback. The technique basically is to fry meat, usually some form of pork, in lard until most of the moisture is drawn out, then pack the meat into large jars, crocks or cans and pouring melted lard over to fill the container and seal the meat to prevent exposure to air. The meat is preserved in its own fat. Although the container might be glass or clay as easily as metal, in Portuguese the term used is carne de lata - literally "canned meat."

The technique is identical to the way that the inhabitants of southwestern France have always made their famous duck confit - the only difference is that the animal in question in Brazil is a pig whereas in France it's a duck. Both animals have large stores of body fat, so both are suitable for preserving in this manner.

Most of the production of carne em lata in Brazil historically was domestic - on farms where pigs were raised one was slaughtered every couple of months, the prime cuts were eaten fresh and the lesser cuts were preserved in fat. There were meat-processing companies that made canned meat on an industrial scale for people who didn't have their own animals to slaughter but who needed meat that could be stored at room temperature until consumed. Most of these companies were located in the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo.

Recently there has been a surge in demand for carne de lata in Brazil. Just as in France, where duck confit has now found a place at the highest levels of gastronomy, Brazilian chefs are discovering just how good canned meat can be. Many of the chefs are making their own carne de lata, but others have gone back to the original industrial producers for the product. The result is that the original firms that made carne de lata, or at least those who survived the long drought during the second half of the last century, are now finding a renewed interest in their product and a large increase in consumption.

One of the best-known of these firms is named Xavante, from the city of Divinópolis in Minas Gerais. They sell carne de lata, in cans with appropriately retro labels, in sizes ranging from 500 gr (about 1 lb) to 3.4 kg (7.5 lb) behemoths. The product is even available for online purchase.

Here at Flavors of Brazil we find it comforting to learn about the return of carne de lata - it's honest food, made as it always has been (because of necessity originally, because of taste these days). It's just one more example of that truism - "Everything old is new again."

And Now For Something Completely Exotic - Içá

Many of the ingredients that form the backbone of Brazilian cuisine are not all that different from those found in the European or North American pantry. Wheat flour, white sugar, beef, oranges, tomatoes - all these ingredients are shared across the Equator, north and south.

Other ingredients that are indispensable in Brazil are quite unknown in the North - some, like manioc, are inherited from the native American tradition and others, such as dendê oil, came from Africa with the slaves.

One such Brazilian food, which has been appreciated in Brazil since before the arrival of Europeans in 1500, is an exotic protein called içá or tanajura. The scientific name for this little animal is Atta sexdens and it a member of an class of animals that is not even considered to be comestible by most North Americans or Europeans- insects.


In English Atta sexdens  is known as a leafcutter ant and it is only one of the many species of these highly-social ants that farm fungus on bits of leaves that they have collect and bring back to their colony. In parts of Brazil these colonies grow to tremendous size, with up to 8 million workers in a single colony.

roasted içá abdomens

As a source of food, Brazilians are very specific about what is edible and what isn't when it comes to the içá. They don't just help themselves to handfuls of fried worker ants, like Thais love to do. They are much more picky. In early summer (right now in Brazil) içá colonies release thousands of winged females whose task is to reproduce, create new colonies and thus ensure the survival of the species. These females are larger than normal ants in the colony and their third segment, the abdomen, is enlarged and full of nutrients. It is this abdomen, popularly called the ant's "ass" in Portuguese (bundinha), that is the insect caviar that many Brazilians love.


In areas such as the Vale do Paraíba, located between the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, when the female ants take flight they are chased after and caught by children and adolescents, who either give them to their families for home eating or sell for up to R$20 (USD $12) per kilo. Each ant is carefully prepared for eating by removing and discarding everything except for the round abdomen.

Once separated the abdomens are roasted and then used in a number of dishes. The most common is called farofa de içá, and just in case readers of Flavors of Brazil want to catch some flying ants next summer so they can serve sometime completely exotic to their family or friends, we'll provide a recipe for this dish in our next post on this blog.

Gastro-tourism Takes Off in Brazil

Tourism is a enormously important industry in Brazil. Visitors to Brazil from all around the world come in their millions every year to experience the natural beauty of this country and to participate in one of the most welcoming and enchanting cultures on the planet. In 2010 more than 5 million foreign tourists traveled to Brazil and while in the country spent a collective total of US$5.9 billion.

These are big numbers, but they are dwarfed by the size of the domestic tourist market in Brazil. There are a lot of Brazilians, just under 200 million of them, and apparently a good number of them like to visit other parts of their own country. Domestic tourist numbers in 2010 were five times the number of international visitors, totalling 51 million visits. While traveling outside their own state, Brazilians spent approximately US$25 billion in 2010. That's not chump change.

The federal govenment of Brazil and the governments of the 27 states of Brazil realize the economic importance of the Brazilian tourist industry, and there is a very active Brazilian national tourist bureau (EMBRATUR) and many state and municipal tourist bureaus throughout the country.

These tourist bureaus mount publicity campaigns inside and outside Brazil to stimulate tourism to Brazil. Traditionally the focus of these campaigns, which include TV commercials and print advertising, has been the elements of Brazilian that are the most well-known to tourists - the beaches, the natural wonders, the historic cities, the music and Carnaval. However, recently we've noticed that tourist bureaus have begun promoting what one might call gastro-tourism, at least to the domestic sector of the market. There is a large population, well-educated and well-off, in Brazil that wants to experience the culinary culture of regions of Brazil other than their own, and these new campaigns attempt to appeal to this sector.

Everyone knows, for example, that the afro-Brazilian cuisine of the state of Bahia is one of the most important cultural features of that state when it comes to attracting tourists. Every tourist who visits Bahia knows they must try acarajé  when they are there, and often it's the desire to have another acarajé that brings them back.

In the most recent issue of the Brazilian food and wine magazine Prazeres da Mesa, there is a full-page ad from the state tourist bureau of the northeastern state of Pernambuco which illustrates this trend of  promoting gastro-tourism. Instead of photographs of blue seas and deserted palm-lined beaches, or of the follies of Carnaval in Recife, the photos in the ad are of two of the most famous desserts linked to the culinary traditions of Pernambuco - bolo de rolo and bolo Souza Leão. The headline of the ad reads "Along with sugar, the Portuguese brought the sin of gluttony [to Pernambuco]. And so they had to build the [historic, baroque] churches." The text at the bottom of the ad explains - "The passion of Pernambucanos for sweets is, without a doubt, a heritage of Portuguese colonization. Sugar-cane cultivation gave birth to, in the kitchens of our sugar-cane plantations, a tradition of cakes and sweets. Recipes that are part of our history and, even today, a part of our table. Come try them."

This is sophisticated marketing of a destination aimed at a sophisticated audience. An audience that knows how important sweet-cooking is to the culinary traditions of Pernambuco, that recognizes the iconic recipes and one that might be tempted to travel to Pernambuco to sample bolo de rolo and bolo Souza Leão  in the land of their origin.

Here at Flavors of Brazil, we're all in favor of gastro-tourism and are enthusiastic participants ourselves. In the past twelve months, we've taken gastronomically-focused trips to Rio de Janeiro and São Luís, Maranhão, and reported on them on this blog. After seeing the ad pictured above, maybe our first gastronomic expedition for 2012 should be to Pernambuco. Who knows?

Cooks to the Rescue! Saving Traditional Paulista Cuisine

cuzcuz paulista

The megalopolis (plus or minus 19 million inhabitants) that is the city of São Paulo is a modern,  avant-garde city of tomorrow, both for good or for bad. Although the city has a long history, its look is ever forward, rarely backward - art, music, architecture all march relentlessly into the future, and referential art, which looks backward to earlier times, is not valued.

What is true for fine arts in São Paulo is also true for the art of cooking. Because of the long history of the city, and of the countryside in the state of São Paulo that nourishes it, there is a wealth of culinary tradition that stretches back almost 500 years. Yet in São Paulo it's the chef who is the most outré, the most daring and inventive who wins prizes and accolades. Molecular gastronomy and creative and unheard-of fusions rule with critics and diners alike. Traditional paulista (from São Paulo) cuisine is an endangered species in its home territory.

Jefferson Rueda

A few youngs chefs from São Paulo, however, are working feverishly to rescue traditional paulista cooking from obscurity before it disappears entirely. They are riding to the rescue of the imperiled maiden that is paulista cuisine and hope to raise its profile and protect its treasures by taste education, by publication and by presentation.

A recent article in the São Paulo newspaper Folha de S. Paulo details the work of these mostly younger chefs. Here is Flavors of Brazil's translation of the article:

The traditional cuisine of São Paulo is in decline. This beautifully simple, rustic cuisine, marked by the importance of corn, pork, and chicken.

And so have arisen a few daring young chefs - who make the humble origins of this paulista cuisine, which has been a source of shame, a source of pride - stubbornly searching for the roots of this cuisine, and resolved to make some noise in the city. Cooks like Jefferson Rueda and Ivan Achcar Eudes Assisi, who work to rescue the aromas that wafted through their childhood homes, in recipes that feature ingredients from the earth, the countryside, in a well-rounded new cuisine, using only traditional techniques.

In parallel with the cooks, on September 21st São Paulo City Councilman Juscelino Gadelha applied to have a traditional dish called virado paulista enshrined as part of the intangible patrimony of the city of São Paulo in the city's heritage list. The recipe is one of the iconic dishes of the style of cooking that first began to take shape (and still is formed) by the hands of Portuguese colonists and native Indians. Of the pioneers and cowboys. Of those who left what is now the city of São Paulo barefoot, armed with guns, and hammocks for sleeping, a few bringing along silver spoons, old books to entertain themselves, such as those described by pioneer Alcântara Machado. Of those on backcountry expeditions in the last quarter of the 17th century, searching the land for gold and Indians.

For food, these pioneers took little with them when they left the city. They made good use of the fish that swam the rivers, the berries and all the animals that they found in the brush. They were required by decree, according to food historian Caloca Fernandes, to "sow corn, beans and squash, easy to grow plants that will ensure a supply for new pioneers."

"In time this diet, rustic in character, became a permanent remembrance of the pioneer experience," says historian Antonio Candido. "And today there are elements of that adventurous spirit, which appear in the work of (chef) Eudes Assisi, for example."

Born and raised on the São Paulo coast, youngest of 14 children, chef Eudes, who once traveled the world cooking on cruise ships, now champions local ingredients such as the pupunha palm,  the wild lime and the taro-like taioba. 

"My coastal culture was being lost, no one was drying home-caught fish on a line, as my mother once did" says chef Eudes. But in the restaurant that Eudes will open in 2012, his plan is to showcase that genuine coastal cuisine of his childhood, a mixture of fish and bananas, sweet and salty. 

Similarly Jefferson Rueda, who now works in a prestigious European restaurant, will return to São Paulo in December and plans to open his own restaurant there in January. It will highlight the rustic gastronomy of the state's interior, which was first settled by Italian immigrants who came to work on coffee plantations. "Paulista cuisine has influences from other Brazilian states and other countries too," says Rueda. Chef Eudes in his Casa da Fazenda (Farmhouse) restaurant will simple pork loin, chicken with okra, virado paulista, thus sharing this idea of a "collective memory" cuisine.

"Do you know where I find comfort in São Paulo?", asks chef Eudes. "In classic paulista restaurants like Sujinho, in neighborhood botecos, in that little bar on the corner."


Jefferson Rueda agrees: "The rustic cuisine of the interior of  São Paulo is something beautiful. Everything resolves around the table."

Ivan Achcar Eudes Assisi

The work of these chefs is not something unique to them or to  São Paulo. Similar chefs are working around the world to ensure that culinary traditions that date back hundreds or thousands of years are not lost irretrievably. We should all give them a nice round of applause, and all the support they need.